Sunday, November 29, 2009

Swiss Neutrality

In a referendum, Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets in the country. I am not going to delve too deep into how ridiculous of a step this is or the illogical arguments of those advocating it, but I simply do not see how an architectural form can increase Muslim extremism, like those arguing for this ban suggest. In fact, I can only see this ban increasing that extremism. Persecuting a group is not usually a good way to make them less extreme.

But, what really bothers me is that Europe seems to be moving more towards restricting freedoms. I'm no expert on Swiss government, but this seems to go against everything that Europe always spouts about being a free and open society. I don't want to imply that it is only Switzerland, because other European nations, notably France and Germany, have recently instituted similar rulings that are mindlessly oppressive to a minority.

Were here at BSD are, and always will be supporters of any freedom with does not infringe upon the rights of others.

4 comments:

Caleb said...

I know that their government is saying its against freedom of religion but maybe the government is out of touch with the people. I want to say something about this like, hey look, thats democracy and nearly 60 percent of the voters supported this. But much more strongly want to say hey, who ever said democracy was such a great idea?

Matt said...

Which is exactly why we have constitutions, to protect people form the tyranny of the majority. But, I'm not sure what the governmental structure of Switzerland is... I think it is a federalist system with significant power to the cantons. I should probably look that up.

Karl said...

Muslim immigration is ruining Europe. I wish I didn't have to say that, because obviously in theory everyone should be allowed to immigrate wherever they want. But the facts show that honor killings and backwards sharia law are creating parallel and unequal statuses for women and others in European communities with increased numbers of Muslims. Obviously not all Muslims are at fault, but it is happening. I don't know how banning minarets will stop this, but unfortunately their hearts are in the wrong-but-right place.

Matt said...

First off, that is a ridiculous exaggeration. Europeans have done plenty to attempt to ruin their continent for themselves and haven't succeeded. Two world wars in thirty years? Does that ring any bells? Honor killings are certainly a problem, I'm not going to make light of that, but persecuting a minority is not going to do anything to stop them. And I agree with you that the treatment of many Muslim women is atrocious, but again, discrimination against Islam is not the answer. These problems need to be solved, but closed-mindedness is not the way to solve them.